Blog

It was one busy week. So busy in fact that it took us a week to recover and report back. We've taken a selection of pictures from it, so you can take a look for yourselves. Over Saturday and Sunday the 5th and the 6th December we had the most jam-packed Winter Sale ever, and sold over 1000 pots. The proceeds all go to support early-career ceramicists in establishing their businesses. In addition, we raised over £1700 for medical emergency supplies for one of our students, nurse Hannah Goodwin, to take to Calais to help refugees set up a medical centre.

We were also part of Hey Clay, the initiative by the Craft Council and the BBC's Get Creative to get more people getting their hands in clay. We ran free taster sessions with our resident artist Ben Sutton throughout Friday the 4th.

Tallie spent Friday 4th at the Treasury meeting George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and other small business owners, as Turning Earth has been chosen as one of the Small Business 100 - a group of businesses that represent the diversity and innovation in the sector. She learned that small business makes up 60% of the UK private economy. This means that a well-organised small business and co-work movement should be able to influence policy to support more sustainable, decentralised industry, which is what Turning Earth is all about. Together, small businesses dwarf the multinational corporations that the likes of Osborne meet every day and we hope to see them gaining more influence. Organising under the banner of Small Business Saturday seems like a good first step.

For now, we will wish you a Happy Christmas, take a breather, and come back refreshed in the New Year. Our next studio sale will be held on Easter Saturday, 26th March 2016.

Image: Sabrina Dallot-Seguro

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Image copyright BBC Great Pottery Throwdown

So it went out with a bang, or more accurately, like a polite British farewell after a village summer fete. There was something very reassuring and reasonable about the final episode of The Great Pottery Throw Down. Arguably, the best man won; no fireworks, no lap of glory no more tears even. Just no cracks in the handles or bottoms.

It was the last montage of where they are now which was most relevant to us in the end, as the life changing (sort of) drama unfolded from week to week, we saw how it shaped and changed the contestants, how they improved and developed and then we were given the snippets of the impact it had had on them after it was over. Somehow that last part brought something home to us too. How we had changed as a collective, as a studio. It wasn’t so much the excitement from copying the challenges or learning new things. But how we’d grown physically and inexorably, the studio membership and interest in it has soared and peaked as the show progressed, generating a growing waiting list. We’ve had to find creative ways to accommodate and schedule courses without starting riots. It’s not bragging, it’s the nation waking up to possibilities and Turning Earth, currently, is right in the frontline: BBC’s Throwdown it seems, has changed our lives too.

New pressures on established systems due to maximum capacity membership have forced us to adapt to new ways of running a studio. It used to be an irritation when a kiln mis-fired, now it’s an emergency. We’ve had to arrange extra shelving, a new kiln, more wheels, more hands on deck. That frantic energy to win challenges in the show has segued its way into our work life. The difference is, we don’t get to switch off.

So, well-potted Matthew, a close tie with Tom perhaps but quality shone through. We’ve enjoyed the ride, learned a few things here and there. We’re just wondering how soon it will be till you’re on our screens again, and what the hell will become of us when you are.

--Lewis

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Small Business Saturday Studio Sale, Saturday 5th and Sunday 6th December

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Film created by Sabrina Dallot-Seguro

Saturday 5th December is Small Business Saturday, a day  established to encourage consumers to shop in local, brick and mortar businesses during the holiday period. Turning Earth is proud to have been chosen as one of the 'Small Business 100', a group of 'unsung heroes that showcase the diversity of the sector.' (This is Money.)

Last year, sales at small businesses increased by £36 million for Small Business Saturday.

Turning Earth is holding our Winter Ceramics Sale to coincide with this year's Small Business Saturday, and we couldn't be happier to be associated with the movement it represents. We firmly believe that in the future, people will make many more things locally, with enjoyment, and that we'll all buy locally from small entrepreneurs as well.

We want to see a world without unnecessary and unsustainable freight, without sweat shops, and without Londoners working long hours at jobs they don't enjoy. What could support this more than enabling designer-makers, such as our potters, to get to a place where they can sustain a career doing what they love?

Turning Earth was recommended to participate in Small Business Saturday by Transport for London, our landlords in the railway arches in Hoxton. Many start-up businesses have recently been taking root and growing within the newly refurbished arches across the London transport network, and particularly within our local area, the Kingsland Viaduct. We do yoga down the arches in Tripspace, buy our coffee from Fabrique, and then have a drink in the evening at Beagle. As TfL invests in renovation, the railway arches are becoming less and less places for dark and dingy businesses such as oily car mechanics, and more and more consumer facing. They are important veins running through London that can house innovation and new creative businesses. Following the success of Turning Earth in the arches in Hoxton, we are now working  with TfL on options for our  West London location.

As London's transport network improves, by investing in the arches, TfL is also investing in the infrastructure that supports small enterprise. Recognising this, they have teamed up with Small Business Saturday to give new businesses like ours a bit of a boost. We're really pleased to see that TfL has identified the impact it can have and has decided to champion small businesses like ours. We think it's a sign of the times that such a large organisation sees the value that creative innovation is bringing to areas like Hackney.

So, we're looking forward to meeting a whole lot of Small Business Saturday shoppers this weekend at the sale.

And, just to remind you, there's a free glass of mulled wine for anyone that comes along and buys one of our cups.

--Tallie

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Image copyright BBC. Episode 4 of The Great Pottery Throw Down

Another serious episode of the Throw Down, more crying and sweating (no blood thank goodness) and happily, a slight reduction in sexual innuendo. Someone had to go of course, and Sandra, we salute you too, a bit of a gamble using Tellytubbies as inspiration for garden sculpture, but I liked it. Not quite sure how Matthew managed to win however, maybe my finger is slightly off the pulse of contemporary aesthetics, but hell’s bells, I guess that’s the beauty of modern creative freedom.  

I’m so happy that the Throw Down is bringing pottery back into the public consciousness, or is it that it was already reemerging and so they felt the need to make the show about it? Either way, the only problem is that it is also comes with a vaguely pernicious sense of urgency and an anxious threat of failure. And I’m not sure that’s how you should exist in any situation, especially when swimming in the juices of your own creative daemon, you’ll end up sinking,  or even doggy paddling.

And it’s starting to creep in here, at our studio too. Because of the show - or the zeitgeist - we are now at capacity with a growing waiting list; it’s hard to get on our courses (I get angry calls from people who’ve failed multiple times to sign up) although we run as many classes as we possibly can. It brings that same nervousness and frustration. It was never meant to be like that. We need calm here, and temperance. Tessa agrees with me. ‘make three pieces’, she says ‘take all the time in the world, make them in a way you can enjoy making them, put some You in them. Don’t be furiously churning out fifty for a sale or a show or a judge; they’ll have no real value in them’.  What wisdom!

Anyway, gripe over; next week it’s porcelain. Are they in for a treat?! What a challenge that can be at the best of times, our porcelain master and member Tom Kemp manages to make it look like a doddle as he calmly throws perfect 3-foot vases out of the stuff, but it isn’t, I know. It still gives me the runaround as it spins around, making itself into white mound of nothing again and again in my hands- and I’ve even done a Jo Davies masterclass.

Good luck team. Don’t sweat it.

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Our Winter Sale is coming up on Saturday the 5th and Sunday 6th December. We will be selling pots from 50 ceramicists, as well as mulled wine and street food.

There will be a maker table with demonstrations of different techniques, including throwing, slab rolling, pinching and screen printing.

The sale coincides with Hey Clay weekend, a collaboration between the UK Craft Council and the BBC's Get Creative to get people to put their hands in clay. On the Friday before the sale we are running two taster sessions for Hey Clay, to give people a chance to see what we do. That weekend it's also Small Business Saturday - a day to encourage consumers to patronise small businesses in the UK. Turning Earth has been lucky enough to be chosen as one of the Small Business 100 so we are doing our best to be ambassadors for the cause. It's going to be a busy weekend for ceramics and for all of us at Turning Earth!

We made these beautiful postcards of work by our members as flyers/postcards to advertise the sale. Look out for them around London!

Photography: Sabrina Dallot-Seguro

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Episode 2 of the BBC's  Great Pottery Throw Down. Photo from the BBC website

Blimey the nerves! I don’t know how they hack it. It’s bad enough anyway, fretting over what will come out of the kiln after you have lovingly shaped caressed and poured your heart into a piece. Now one everyday slip up and it’s: ‘Chuck ‘em out the door!’

So we’re feeling for the contestants who remain on BBC2s The Great Pottery Throw Down. Judgment came and another brave soul is gone.

Oh no! Nigel come back, we loved your work! What does a crack matter in a basin anyway? I know I’ve been tempted, break something in the bisque firing: fix it with a bit of glaze in the second firing- if you have a BBC show to stay on, what the hell. Episode two gave us all a reminder of why we don’t attempt to make coiled sinks and bathroom ware every day. But now we will, we have to, we’re redoing the bathroom in the studio and have been inspired, again. So, a new project is born for one of our members: Make us a sink as beautiful as Matthew’s swirling green Aztec temple was, and it’s going in. Watch this space folks, I’ll post a picture of the winner.

I knew it would happen. Throwing blindfolded, what a torture. Please Tessa don’t make us do that one too. Good for TV viewing maybe, but I think we’ll skip that one here, not enough blindfolds anyway. What did almost slip past in a twinkling, was the vague nod to clay shrinkage rates which is always a real issue for sink makers and tile makers and in fact anything that requires exact measurements after artesanal work is fired. I was amazed at how many of them managed to slot that copper plug unit into the hole with precision first time of asking. High fives guys.

So, the competition in our own studio has taken place and the pieces inspired by the first episode have been put into the kiln -things here don’t tick over quite as fast they seem to on the telly- and we’re keen to see who’s won the first round; apparently the bowls do have to stack. Good luck guys!

Looking forward to next week’s episode, was that a raku kiln? Can’t wait for that one. Luckily we haven’t got one of those terrifying open-air, where’s-me-eyebrows fire pits yet or lord knows what Ms Barrett could be plotting for us. Also a daily smoke out of the whole of Hackney probably wouldn’t go down at all well with our neighbours.

-- Lewis

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